Used car died within 1 hour(yes 20 miles, 60 minutes). What are my rights?

[Craigbadger]

Basically picked up a car saturday afternoon. Used car but I was happy enough with it. £1000. Had a short test drive and it felt good, looked around and on the face of it all very good, no problems, dealer had all the papers and stuff, everything in order. Was an engine light but he told me this was ignition coil which was haggled off the price paid.

Paid on debit card and set off out of Birmingham, 20 miles down the m40 lost power and pulled onto the hard shoulder. Car wont start and battery dead etc, turn the key and all the lights went out and clock reset etc. Towed home by RAC, got home at 10pm after standing in the rain for 90s mins.

 

Emailed him last night telling him what happened and asking where to go from here. Basically he said I need to get the car to him and get it checked out which is a lot of effort so I asked if I could get a local mechanic friend to check it which he agreed to. He had a look and after hoping it was the alternator he came back saying it is certainly more serious. Cant remember what he said off the top of my head but we are talking £600+.

Let the dealer know this and he now says to bring the car back over so his mechanic can have a look.

 

My personal preference now is that I want my money back, ive put £25 petrol in the tank and i'm hiring a tow truck so i'm out of pocket immediately, id rather put this down to experience.

Now the fact that he wants his mechanic to see it gives me the impression that he is thinking of doing the repair. In fairness the dealer has been polite and quick to respond to all emails and contacts, he has several far higher value vehicles and is selling on Autotrader.

 

Where do I stand here legally?

Also how should I accept a refund and what should I receive to confirm the refund?

I realise I have not used a credit card but ive read somewhere about debit card chargebacks, what is the situation with these?

 

Any advice much appreciated, i'm going at 2 tomorrow afternoon.

[renegadeimp]

You have the full right for a full refund, but as the garage said, it's best to let their mechanic look at it first. Make sure the mechanic you use produced a written report. If the seller finds anything wrong with it ( you'll know if he's lying), then you can simply say you do not want it any more and you want the money back.

 

If he refuses to refund, we can advise further, but with an independant mechanics report stating that there is a serious issue that would cost upwards of £600 to fix, he doesnt really have a leg to stand on.

[Craigbadger]

I'll be honest my mate only had a quick rather than doing a full report but he knew it will need the engine taking out to diagnose exactly what it is but that alone is a few hundred pounds labour. The £600 fix would be the best possible outcome and I presume that would be 8 hours labour and the replacement of something cheap where if its more serious that 600 will rapidly rise.

He said he knew within 2 minutes it was a big job, hes been a mechanic for 20 years and has a good reputation.

[Conniff]

You can't have a 'quick look' and decide the engine needs to come out, you need to know what is wrong with it before you can decide on the action required.

[renegadeimp]

Yep. Conniff is right. I would say to get an independant mechanic/garages report, and depending on what the seller says in response, you could consider legal action plus reclaiming the cost of the report. That is an extreme scenario though, but you need to get a report done first before you let the seller look at it, incase he tries to mess around with the car while in his posession.

[Craigbadger]

Well I dont know, i'm certainly no car expert, I guess going by what it was doing he knew it was one of several things and it wasnt anything that could be easily done without spending time and money getting inside. Will see what this other mechanic says anyway.

End of the day i'm not in the wrong and not willing to go paying out more to find out they wont pay for it and want the car returning. In theory they will cover my expenses but realistically it wont happen so they can have the car back and i'll cut my losses.

[BankFodder]

Get the car back to him and then if necessary bring a small claims.

 

Don't register it in your name. Walk away from the whole thing. Claim back all of your expenses as well

[Craigbadger]

Well he had the completed V5 doc so I presume it depends if he has sent it yet which I doubt.

I need a car and this has already cost me 2 days work, I cant afford to buy another at the moment without a refund.

 

I just dont see that they can do anything other than accept that the car was no good when sold, had it been a few weeks old i'd of expected a bit of hassle but given it was an hour before it failed.

 

I am really going to push for a refund and in fairness would rather walk out of there with the money paid for the car and leave it there, the point with my mate was that it was hopefully an easy minor fix and get the dealer to pay for that, I would never of bought a car had I known there was a major problem. Its effectively scrap.

I'm just worried that he's so intent on getting it in this garage. I know I could push for expenses and stuff but at this time just care about getting the refund for the car and taking it on the chin, atleast for the moment.

[Craigbadger]

Well that was a lot easier than I expected, got the garage and it was some ropey looking place, lots of half finished jobs. Waited for 40 mins, got the car off the van to be told by a couple of barely adults that they wont have time today. Rang the dealer and said I WANT A REFUND, he told me to come back to the office and 2 minutes later hes processed the refund back to my debit card.

 

I'm £100 down on transport hire but i'm happy with the refund, stressed out about other things and dont need this ongoing.